


this is how i show my love

by Kandakicksass



Series: [we are] that kind of crazy [2]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Relationships, General insanity (of both parties), M/M, Possessiveness, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kandakicksass/pseuds/Kandakicksass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne is allowed moments of weakness. Batman is not, especially when it comes to the Joker.<br/>(His Joker.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is how i show my love

**Author's Note:**

> I said I might continue this, so I decided on random ficlets in this verse when the mood strikes me.

The batsuit is like a second skin and it holds him together. It’s what he needs, a bandage for all his various ills and ailments. A barrier between him and the one who put them there.

For now, he’s alone on the top of a hospital. The night air in Gotham is a blessing against his skin; it’s hard to feel when he’s chilled to the bone. Perhaps Bruce Wayne would be complaining by now, but Batman is made of sterner stuff. He needs to be, for the both of them.

It’s a thing that Joker likes to make fun of, his constant referring to one persona or another as a completely separate person, but sometimes – especially when he’s with the Joker – he feels like they truly are. Somewhere deep inside, Batman has Bruce Wayne’s weakness and Bruce has Batman’s stoicism and strength, but it feels like there is a barrier between the two halves of him.

“You’re a brand-new kind of crazy, bats,” Joker had cooed at him, and he maybe he was right. “Aren’t you a special little snowflake?”

It’s the Batman who shakes his head, who narrows his eyes and curls a lip in disgust. He pushes thoughts of Joker from his head and pulls out of a crouch. It’s a testament to how fit he is that they don’t ache; he’s been in that position for nearly half an hour. Gotham is strangely quiet tonight; he’s stopped one mugging (careless) and two separate cases of attempted assault (disrespectful, disgusting), but nothing from anything higher up. The big fish aren’t out swimming tonight, and that concerns him. It’s only quiet when there’s something else cooking that he can’t quite see – but the normal thrum of tension beneath Gotham’s streets is quiet and calm.

“Does your boyfriend not want to play tonight, Batman?”

He closes his eyes. _Selina_. “If I knew who you were talking about, maybe I could answer you.” His voice is gruff, but the reminder that Joker is a living, breathing being out there under Gotham’s sky, for some reason, is enough to make him release a breath and the tension that came with it.

She stalks up, a smirk on her painted lips, and drapes herself across his back. “Don’t be like that,” she murmurs, leaning up and nosing against his jaw. “I was just curious. It’s rare to see you without the clown prince in tow.”

“Do you people really call him that?” he asks (sneers) at her, shaking her off his shoulders and stepping away.

Selina isn’t discouraged by his distance. She just smiles smugly and cocks a hip. “What, the clown prince of crime?” When he makes a face, she snickers. “I think it’s cute,” she teases. “And he has yet to complain. He’s accepted his crown.” She shrugs.

“It’s embarrassing,” he says after a silence of being unable to think of something else to say.

“He doesn’t get embarrassed,” Catwoman tells him. “He takes the embarrassing and owns it, then shames whoever tried to insult him.” She pauses. “Or did you mean it’s embarrassing to be associated with? It’s okay, honey – I’m sure the princess crown will fit you just fine.”

When he growls and reaches forward to wrap a loose hand around her throat, she just laughs at him. Once upon a time, the sexual tension between them could be cut with a knife, but now it’s only a sort of teasing camaraderie (almost). It’s times like this when he wants the flirting back, instead of the half-assed seduction she pulls to get a rise out of him.

“I haven’t arrested you yet, Catwoman,” he tells her in a low voice. “It doesn’t mean that I can’t. Don’t push me.”

“You’d rather Joker to be the one doing the pushing?” she asks. It would be brave, if she didn’t know that he posed no threat. Of all the trouble in Gotham, she is very, _very_ low on his priority list.

“There is nothing between us,” he hisses, starting to get uncomfortable under her scrutiny. No one _knows_ about him and Joker, and he doesn’t like her talking like she does. He doesn’t like the knowing look in her eyes. “He’s a criminal. My only purpose is to lock him away and make sure he doesn’t ever get out again.” Except that he always _does_ and Bruce never knows whether he should be relieved or upset.

“Your only purpose is Joker,” she says, slowly, waiting for him to realize what he’d said and he pushes her away, feeling that inexplicable anger well under his skin.

“Better me than two bit hacks like you,” a third voice taunts from the shadows. Joker steps out. Neither Catwoman nor Batman are truly surprised. “My Batsy here has _some_ class.”

“I’m not your anything,” he growls, feeling his skin flush high on his cheeks where it’s covered by the cowl. But he is, and he knows it.

After all, the Joker is his, too.

Joker is facing Catwoman, halfway between them, and looks back over his shoulder. “Baby,” he says. “Let me deal with the riff-raff and then we can go do what mommies and daddies do when the kiddos are asleep.” He glances back at Catwoman, that too-wide grin still on his face. “How about we put the kid to sleep?”

He reaches to knock Selina out, but she just ducks and rolls a couple feet away. She doesn’t look overly impressed. She’s also making no attempts to take him out herself.

“Batman,” she says, letting the word roll of her tongue. “It’s been fun. I’ll leave you two to do whatever dance you think I don’t know about, but if this psycho comes after me later, I just want you to know that I’m going to be coming after you.” The threat is light, and he knows that she probably means it, but he’s not worried about it. She takes off and leaves him with the Joker.

“Did you have fun playing with the kitty cat?” Joker croons, taking a cross step into the space where Selina had stood, watching him. The heavy coat is missing for once in spite of the cold, and Joker’s slim waist and lightly muscular arms are on display in his vest and button-down with rolled up sleeves. He is sleek and graceful, a walking disaster. Bruce’s disaster. “I didn’t really consider killing her before, you know, but if she keeps acting like that, I think I will.”

“Don’t touch her, Joker.”

The Joker just smiles at him, coming closer. Bruce isn’t a very big man, and neither is Joker; they’re evenly matched. While Joker is taller and lithe, with smaller-looking but efficient muscles, Bruce’s weight is _mostly_ muscle. Joker wraps an arm around his shoulders, fingers lightly stroking the covered skin at the back of his neck. “Sugar,” he whispers. “I’m going to do what I feel like doing.” And doesn’t he know it.

“And what do you feel like doing?” he asks, Joker’s lips only a scant inch from his own.

“I feel like dancing,” Joker says with a wide grin. They don’t kiss. He steps back, makes a vague gesture – an invitation. _Come at me, Batsy_. Joker doesn’t even need to say it. Bruce knows how this will play out; they will fight and they will curse and in the end, as always, they’ll be too-close-not-close-enough and Bruce will beg him for harder, deeper, _more_. He can stop this now, before it gets to that point. He _can_. He can just walk away and finally put an end to this, at least for now. Joker is a weakness he can't afford to give himself, not now. Bruce Wayne is allowed moments of weakness. Batman is not, especially when it comes to the Joker.  
(His Joker.)

His hand curls into a fist, and he buries it in Joker's stomach. 


End file.
